PSU Magazine Spring 2000

Phillip <jibbons and his life-long partner, the late Orville Garrison, spent their careers advocating for people who don't have a voice. Through their estate plans, the two social workers have assured that others will continue this work. Phillip's life wasn't always headed toward social work. "There was a family doctrine," he says, "that 'Phillip, with his long, beautiful hands, was bound to be a surgeon.' I thought so, too." During high school he looked for work experience that would test his interest in the medical field. Then, while serving in World War II, Phillip became a field-trained medic for an artillery unit in the Philippines. "A life of cold canned food, explosions, and dysentery," he remem– bers. After the war, still thinking of a pre-med degree, Phillip headed for college. "My mind said I'd like to be a doctor and help people, but my intelligence quotient in math and chemistry was telling me something else," says Phillip. A trusted professor suggested that he could accomplish his central desire-to help others-in more than one way. "That," he says, "steered me toward social work. "Orville had his head on straighter than me in college, which is where we met," recalls Phillip. "He was already clearly aimed toward psychology and social work." After college and graduate school, the two made their home in Milwaukie, where they lived for 50 years until Orville's death from kidney failure in 1998. Each had long careers in social service agencies serving youth and older people. Several years ago, with the help of their attorney, Phillip and Orville began making plans to establish, through their estate, an endowment at Portland State University. "We knew the Graduate School of Social Work well, having advocated for developing the program at PSU from the beginning," says Phillip. "The first dean, Dr. Gordon Heam, was our professor at the University of California." The Garrison-Gibbons Fellowship will make its first award this spring to assist gay and lesbian students in the Graduate School of Social Work. It was important to both Phillip and Orville to support others who are choosing the same path of service that they embarked on over 50 years ago. "We're a minority, part of the diversity of the U.S. of A.-of the world, actually," says Phillip. "What Orville and I wanted to encourage are students who are open about who they are and engaged in service that advances the social work mission they care about most. "Orville, who is still with me in these decisions, would probably be as surprised as I at what's come to fruition. I know he'd be both relieved and happy about what we've done."